Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Why Women Should Vote

I received this story in an email from a friend and it really touched my heart. I knew about the fight that women who came before us fought to get women the right to vote. I had no idea the torture and pain they endured for this fight. All women should get out there in vote. If not for the candidate of your choice then for all the women who came before us to fight for this right. Please don't let their pain, suffering and deaths be in vain.

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the

right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailednonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs askingfor the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessingwent on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

(Lucy Burns)They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars aboveher head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gaspingfor air.

(Dora Lewis)They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed herhead against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate,Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging,beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917,when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered hisguards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there becausethey dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the rightto vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Theirfood--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeksuntil word was smuggled out to the press.http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because- -why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.